Talk:Radiohead

Two sentences that I added to the article last night were reverted because they were deemed "excess detail", and premature because of the possibility of each of Radiohead's tours receiving their own articles. I do not agree with either of these reasons and the edit summary would get too long if I tried to edit it back in so I'm posting a proposal here.

1. I do not see any plans to make articles for each of Radiohead's tours. They are all covered in one article, and the only person who suggested splitting them up on that article's talk page proposed it 13 years ago with no responses or discussion to this day. It's a moot point for removing what I added.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Radiohead_live_performances

2. The planned donation to Doctors Without Borders matching the proceeds from this tour is an important detail to add considering the ongoing Israel controversy. These plans are listed under the tour's FAQ section on the current landing page for radiohead.com. For whatever reason, it has gone largely unreported by the press who have otherwise been extensively covering the controversy and BDS' renewed calls for a boycott, despite the donation being to an organization that has been highly critical of Israel's military offenses, accused them of committing genocide, and are providing medical aid to Palestinians in Gaza (I'm aware that Google News feeds are not sources in any way, but I would like to keep this as brief and substantial as I can, so far there is a page and a half of articles on the boycott and six articles at all that bother to mention the donation).

https://www.google.com/search?q=radiohead+%22boycott&tbm=nws

https://www.google.com/search?q=radiohead+%22doctors+without+borders&tbm=nws

https://www.instagram.com/p/DOI6_aSiFXP/

https://msf.org.uk/issues/gaza-genocide

Radiohead are clearly trying to shift their stance on the conflict with this gesture after individual members' poor handling of it over the past year. The History section covers at least six of the band's past charitable efforts from music releases and live shows that I can count (War Child, Tibetan Freedom, Band Aid 20, the British Legion, Oxfam, Extinction Rebellion), so there is already a precedent for something like this to be considered relevant to mention. As for the LIVE Trust donation for the UK tour dates, I will admit I don't think that is as relevant as the band donating to humanitarian aid involved in a hot button issue the band themselves are embroiled in, but it should be a matter of discussion. I strongly feel that a sentence about them donating to Doctors Without Borders is not excessive, it is directly related to their perception right now and should not go unnoticed.

This is the sentence I would like to be added to the end of the 2025: return to touring subsection:

All ticket sales for tour dates outside of the UK include a €1 donation to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, with the band also announcing that they would match the total donation to the organization.^[1] BoxesOnFire (talk) 21:56, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

We already have an article for the 2025 tour and it looks notable enough to justify an independent standing, given the hype for the band. Even so, the Doctors Without Borders detail probably doesn't give enough context in the last revisions you did, without mentioning their stance against Israel. Stating that as well risks info bloat, as noted by Popcornfud, and I moved your D.W.B. info to the appropriate article. Lastly, this reply has some speculative stuff that doesn't add to what is currently on the 2025 tour article at the moment...maybe give some time to see if the latter remains unmerged, I assume likely not. Carlinal (talk) 22:48, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I didn't notice there was an article for the tour, I was going off of the template, but I guess it just hasn't been updated to include this yet. Thank you for moving the info there though, I was mainly concerned about it being removed at all and I figured the Israel context was already a given since the last two paragraphs before the tour subsection in the main article were all about it. I'm content with it just being in the tour article, I won't push further for this being in the main article. BoxesOnFire (talk) 23:40, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Not to mention, the controversial Israel show was in 2017, not 2021-present. I don't think it's significant enough to define an entire era of the band. Hyggefrost (talk) 22:40, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

It's difficult. It has drawn extensive coverage in secondary sources and the issue has been floating around for a few years now and is only getting more coverage, so it needs to be in the article somewhere. The hard part is getting it to fit neatly into the chronological coverage. Popcornfud (talk) 22:46, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Maybe it would be better off in a general "politics/views" section? Right now the closest we have is "lyrical themes". Hyggefrost (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

I considered that. It could work but I'm not sure. The worry I have is that it will simply duplicate too much of the (extensive) politics section of the Thom Yorke article. 99% of Radiohead's politics are really just Yorke's politics. We already have kind of the same problem with the Lyrics section in this article and in the Thom Yorke article.

I've also sometimes wondered if we should create a dedicated Radiohead and Israel article, because there's been so much coverage and that coverage is currently split across multiple Radiohead-related pages... but it just seems OTT. Popcornfud (talk) 15:42, 20 November 2025 (UTC)